LetMeShop User Manual

Read this section carefully before beginning to add your categories and products.

Products are the foundation of your online catalog. They are the reason surfers use your site and they provide the foundation for the majority of the search engine placement enjoyed by your site. This section will cover not only how to manage your product listings but also how to make the most use of your product names and descriptions to enhance your position in search engines.

Overview of LetMeShop's product navigation and definition

Defining a product: In the eyes of a shopper in your catalog your products are defined by how they appear. For instance, a shopper cannot tell the difference between a brown size 8 shoe and a brown size 6 shoe if they are the same style. Your first job is to determine how a specific line of products will be most easily accessed through your catalog with a minimum of confusion.

Your product navigation choices: Products can be organized into three main department or category levels.

1. Top Level Divisions: Allows you to set up product divisions that segment categories. Divisions are not required and cannot contain product records.
2. Main Categories: These top level categories are required and may contain product records.
3. Sub-Categories: If a single category does not adequately define your product groups you may choose to add sub-categories for each main category. Sub-categories may contain product records.

For instance, a clothing store sells a line of shoes and a line of jackets the product organization may look something like this...

• Division: Shoes
  • Main Category: Work Shoes
    • Sub-category: Boots
    • Sub-category: Shoes
  • Main Category: Dress Shoes
    • Sub-category: Lace Up Shoes
    • Sub-Category: Loafers
• Division: Jackets
  • Main Category: Dress
  • Main Category: Casual

When you define a main or sub category you can create unique attributes that apply ONLY to the products in that category. The attributes you define here should be the attributes necessary to define the "look" of a product. For instance, in your shoes category you could create  a "style" attribute and  a "color" attribute. These three attributes would define what a product looks like. A BROWN (color), "LACE UP" (style) shoe would look different from a BLACK (color), LOAFER (style) shoe. These category attributes are shown as dropdown selections when a user chooses a specific category. When the user selects a set of choices (color = brown & style = lace up) only the products that meet the criteria are shown.

Products are divided into two records. The first (parent) record defines the characteristics of the product...name, description, thumbnail image, etc. The second (child) record defines the individual attributes of a stock code. For instance, the E3210 above comes in ten sizes and four widths for a total of 40 stock codes. 

By separating the product definition (parent record) from the attribute (child) record the shopper sees only one product description. The "size" and "width" attributes are defined in the product record and allows you to add just the attributes for the 40 individual stock codes. The resulting product listing is shown below with dropdown boxes that allow the shopper to choose the size and width from simple dropdown boxes.

This format gives you maximum flexibility in creating products for an easy to use catalog site. 

LetMeShop divides every product into two, distinct sections. The first section we call the catalog Product Parent record. The second section we call the catalog product attributes or Product Child record. The product description contains the basic information about a product, it's description, how it relates to other products and defines up to 4 custom attributes that a unique product. The product attribute (child) record defines the unique attributes or properties of a specific product.  

The parent record is in effect a "Product Definition" that groups like products. The following table illustrates some of the values within each type of record.

The following shows how a real set of products would be defined.

As this illustrates, you have two (or more) individual products (unique stock codes). One is a large white oxford shirt and the other is an extra large white oxford shirt. Each has a different price and inventory quantity. If all of these products were displayed in your catalog individually your user would have to scroll through dozens of products to find the one they want. The picture and description for all of the products would be exactly the same. Only the details, pricing and availability would be different.

Product Navigation

From the administration navigation bar choose Product Information / Edit Products. This will show a list of all categories in your site. Products must be added to a specific category. The category list will resemble the illustration below.

You will need to navigate through the category list to locate the product you wish to edit. An alternate method is to use the product search feature.

Below is an illustration of a typical product list using the category navigation.

• Edit Product Info: Allows you to edit the parent product record
• List Pricing Records: Gives you a list of all child records for this product
• Delete: Allows you to delete the product
• Edit Sale Info: Lets you edit the sale information for the product
• ( Add To / Remove From ) Featured Item List: This is a one click switch to add or remove the product from the featured product list.